


rooftop

by elizajane



Series: and behold, it was so very good [21]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:13:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22091350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: The evening after Newt finishes the glass house on the roof of A. Z. Fell, Booksellers, Aziraphale walks the perimeter of the structure, tracing an angelic finger along the varnished wooden ribs between the panes of glass, whispering warmth into the gloaming air.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: and behold, it was so very good [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1411705
Comments: 25
Kudos: 108





	rooftop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alwaysburning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysburning/gifts).



> Gifted to alwaysburning for their lovely comments on this series.
> 
> Much, much love and thanks to first readers and betas Jaydeun and Crowgirl.

The evening after Newt finishes the glass house on the roof of A. Z. Fell, Booksellers, Aziraphale walks the perimeter of the structure, tracing an angelic finger along the varnished wooden ribs between the panes of glass, whispering warmth into the gloaming air. Condensation springs up on the inside of the glass where cold November night meets tropical greenhouse heat.

"Thought this called for a toast," Crowley says behind him, emerging at the top of the stairs with a bottle of single malt and two glasses. "What are you...?" 

Aziraphale completes his circuit and pauses at the door, hand on the latch.

"I thought we might go inside, my dear."

Inside the greenhouse the air smells of wet, rich earth and autumn decay. The potted ginkgo tree in the southeast corner has gone brilliant yellow and the morning will bring a shower of golden leaves. The rosebush Crowley had purchased for Warlock has is dripping with blooms. The asters are all but preening. In working his microclimate miracle Aziraphale had deliberately evoked the abundance of that long-ago garden of their first meeting. Not because he wishes to return to Eden, but because the scent recalls for him the constant of Crowley -- who was there then and who remains with him now.

“You didn’t have to --” Crowley pauses just inside the doorway, tasting the air. “It’s --”

“I didn’t _have_ to,” Aziraphale allows, stepping in behind him and pulling the door shut to keep in the warmth. The movement puts him squarely up against Crowley’s back and it’s natural, now, finally, not to stop himself from swaying into Crowley’s beloved presence. “I just thought … it seemed like the right sort of night. To … remember?”

“Mmm.” Crowley leans back, weight against Aziraphale’s chest, turning his head to nose at Aziraphale’s cheek. “Hard to forget,” he says, lips against Aziraphale’s jaw curving upwards into a smile. “My first encounter with a Principality. God’s Divine Bookseller.” Aziraphale snorts and wraps his arms around Crowley’s waist.

They stand there for a handful of heartbeats simply breathing. Then Crowley pushes himself gently out of Aziraphale’s arms and moves down the narrow gravel path that runs the length of the greenhouse toward the open space at the center.

"Yes, please." Aziraphale sits on one of the chairs and Crowley pours a dram and passes it to Aziraphale, then pours himself the same.

Aziraphale expects Crowley to take the other seat, but instead he folds himself cross-legged between Aziraphale's knees and leans his head back to look up at the darkening sky above them. Aziraphale brushes a lock of hair off his forehead, then drops his hand against Crowley's shoulder. Crowley reaches across his own chest to slot their fingers together.

"Anathema has another property for us to visit, day after tomorrow." Crowley says, swirling the whiskey in the glass before taking a sip. "Texted just as I was dropping Newt at the train."

"Warlock is arriving on the 8:37, tomorrow evening," Aziraphale reminds him. "Do you think he'd enjoy a visit to Tadfield?"

Crowley considers. "Only way to know for sure is to ask him. Would we be ... inviting attention, d'y'think? Taking him back --" he gestures with his whiskey glass "-- _there_?"

Aziraphale considers. "We don't seem to be of interest ourselves. Going there, I mean. Visiting Anathema and Newt. Perhaps Adam's influence ..." he trails off and takes another sip of whiskey himself. None of them understand, really, how Adam's will works -- only that it still seems to exert a powerful hold on the places and people he holds dear.

Crowley rolls his neck and shoulders, as if trying to release unwanted tension. Then he rubs his cheek against Aziraphale's inner thigh. "Mmm." It's agreement that they really have no idea how any of this works, divinely or otherwise. That they're feeling their way one step at a time. But somehow that’s less frightening than it had been, at first, the realization that even Agnes Nutter had seen only scraps of the future -- however accurate her scraps had been. Somehow, during the past two and a half years, the importance of loving certain people -- and loving them _well_ , not from a distance -- has come to outweigh Aziraphale’s fears that knowing him at all will endanger the lives of the people he understands now are his friends. Crowley helps him be brave.

Aziraphale takes another sip of the single malt, tipping his head back and feeling how the whiskey trickles down his throat. The stars are starting to wink at them in the darkness, even through the electric glow of a London night.

Crowley must look up, too, because he says, softly, a few moments later, "Shall I put out the lights?" He doesn't wait for Aziraphale's response before shifting to press a palm flat to the tiled floor and like a rising tide darkness -- proper darkness -- washes over them with the telltale scent of rust. Aziraphale sighs as the myriad stars become visible.

In the darkness, Aziraphale hears Crowley knock back the rest of his whiskey, then set the glass aside. There's a tug on his hand.

"Down here with me, sweetheart," Crowley murmurs. Aziraphale lets himself be pulled out of the chair and down to the warm tile floor. They arrange themselves side by side on their backs, looking up through the glass roof at the universe above. Aziraphale threads his fingers through Crowley's and reaches with angelic senses to feel the planet below them moving through space.

"You even made the _ground_ warm for me," Crowley observes, softly, after a time.

"You know we had Newt put in the radiant heating," Aziraphale points out. Because they had. It had been touch and go whether that was too technological for Newt to handle but as long as they kept him away from the thermostat it had worked out.

Crowley turns his head so that Aziraphale feels his breath move the air between them. "I do. And I know very well the difference between that and a miracle. Miracles smell like a printing press and petrichor."

Aziraphale squeezes Crowley's fingers in response. "I thought tonight you might like to sleep where we could see the stars."

Crowley shifts closer, a sinuous sideways movement Aziraphale feels against his side. Crowley's temple knocks gently against his own. "I'd like that. Just like old times."

They've spent thousands of nights stargazing together. Crowley knows the names of all the stars in every language ever spoken and would lean against Aziraphale in the protective darkness of moonless nights and whisper the names with only Aziraphale to hear, weaving a cocoon of susurration around just the two of them. Aziraphale remembers one such night, not too many centuries ago, when they had sat upon a high fell in Cumbria and Crowley had allowed Aziraphale to pull him, unprotesting, back against his chest where he could feel the vibrations of Crowley's voice against his ribs and beneath his palms, the tickle of auburn curls against his cheek. He'd concentrated on keeping Crowley warm and let the night cradle them together on the journey toward sunrise.

He rolls toward Crowley and nuzzles across his cheek for a kiss. Crowley turns his head and meets Aziraphale half way, soft and slow. They have many hours of darkness and no imperative for sleep. "I didn't get to do _this_ all the other times," Aziraphale points out, smiling against Crowley's lips and drawing his free hand up Crowley's thigh to the hem of his jersey and pushing his fingers beneath autumn layers in search of skin.

Crowley hums in agreement as Aziraphale's palm slides up his abdomen, over the curve of his ribcage. Under his fingers he feels Crowley's never-fully-human muscles tense and ripple as he lifts up to meet Aziraphale's touch. The night is an oasis of quiet, Crowley's darkness muffling the sounds of London as if the world outside were blanketed in snow. All that Aziraphale can hear is the rustle of the ginkgo tree in the warm breeze that swirls around them, a caress of air with just a touch of angelic grace. The soft flutter of not-yet-visible wings. The scent of peat moss that is Crowley's rising desire.

Aziraphale pulls Crowley closer, sliding his hand down to smooth over scales at the small of Crowley's back, the tip of his fingers dipping beneath the waistband of Crowley's jeans. Crowley rocks toward him, pushing one leg over Aziraphale's hip, a movement Aziraphale follows with his hand, sliding down over Crowley's arse to the back of his thigh. His fingers graze Crowley’s inseam, feeling the heat of Crowley's body through denim, feeling his own body respond, growing full and heavy with the desire to be nearer. Crowley moans as Aziraphale's hand tightens on his thigh, pushing approvingly into the touch. He’s fumbling with Aziraphale’s shirt buttons, lips and teeth and tongue still lazy against Aziraphale’s mouth but starting to push for more, deeper, a little bit harder. Aziraphale brings his free hand up to the back of Crowley’s neck where he can tangle his fingers in Crowley’s hair and pull him closer, urge him flush, take his turn to nip at Crowley’s lip and elicit a happy little moan.

In a year of lovemaking, this is new: unwrapping each other under the gaze of the cosmos. Aziraphale feels the starlight against his skin, picking out his shimmer in the darkness as Crowley pushes cloth away. No one can see them here, above the city street under cover of night, yet Aziraphale feels laid bare below the skies. Stars who have listened to him, for millennia, say, _This one, here, is mine_ and _I am lost without him_. He feels both utterly safe -- under Crowley's mouth and hands -- and defiant. _Here we are_ , he thinks. _This is our home._ The greenhouse. The flat. The building. Earth. _This is who we are. And you cannot take us from each other._

All around them is growth. Rich earth, plants heavy with fruit, leaves and blossoms unfurling. Sometimes, Aziraphale dreams Crowley took him in the Garden, up against the rough bark of the apple tree. Pressed to his back in the fragrant grass. In the cooling spray of the newborn spring. In the heat of full sun against the red clay of the wall. Curled together making sleepy, satisfied love together in the perfect warmth of an Edenic night. The dreams have followed him for years, decades, centuries, yet pale in comparison to this: knowing the hitch of in-drawn breath Crowley makes when Aziraphale begins to shimmer with desire. Anticipating the way Crowley traces his hands gently, gently over Aziraphale's chest, leaning in for a tasting kiss, then another, and another. Recalling the last time -- and the time before, and the time before -- Crowley had knelt above him like this, teasing the heat between his legs, pressed against Aziraphale's erection through multiple layers of cloth.

As Crowley lingers over Aziraphale's body -- tongue and teeth and lips and hands, the gentle caress of breath, the vibration of murmured love -- as Aziraphale fights to keep still for him -- skims his hands over Crowley's head and shoulders, touching lightly, _I'm here I'm here yes please more_ \-- so that Crowley can move freely, take the lead, he sees Crowley's wings begin to take shape against the stars. A filagree of the darkest ink following the tracery of a demonic calligrapher's pen. It's been too long since Aziraphale has seen Crowley's wings as they _should_ be seen, surrounded by and shot through with starlight. His breath catches and he feels the sympathetic ache of his own wings in response as they rise to the surface of his form, straining to emerge.

"Crowley," he whispers, catching at Crowley's shoulders with slippery hands. "Crowley, please, I need --" He can't manage a sentence, in any language, but Crowley seems to understand because he slithers back up Aziraphale's front to capture his mouth in a kiss and then pulls Aziraphale into a sitting position.

"I know," he says. "Here, sweetheart, here --" They manage it, somehow, with a fumble of limbs, and end up with Crowley sitting between Aziraphale's thighs, legs wrapped around Aziraphale's hips, both naked to the waist, and then below as Aziraphale grows impatient and simply miracles their trousers and pants away so that everywhere they touch it's skin to skin slippery and warm and good.

Crowley presses his face to Aziraphale's neck and whines, softly, hitching closer, as close as he can, encouraging Aziraphale without words to slide hands beneath him and lift with just a touch of grace. Aziraphale feels the air eddy around them as Crowley steadies himself with a sweep of wings. They slide together, messily, Crowley's body trapping Aziraphale's cock between them. Between his legs Crowley is invitingly soft and open and slick with desire as he pushes greedily forward. Aziraphale lets himself make the wanting, wanton noises Crowley so likes to hear as they move clumsily together.

Another beat of Crowley's wings is all it takes to call Aziraphale's forth and there's a rush of air; the shattering of a clay pot somewhere behind him, and they probably shouldn't be doing this, risking Newt's careful work, but Aziraphale has no room in his consciousness to care. They can mend any damage in the morning. Right now all he can take in is Crowley: Crowley sucking a bruising mark against his throat; Crowley caressing blindly along the join of wing and shoulder on Aziraphale's back, murmuring nonsense syllables of love when Aziraphale arches into his touch; Crowley reaching between them when Aziraphale drags his palm down Crowley's belly, then between his thighs searching for the place where his fingers will be welcomed inside, guiding Aziraphale's fingers to the place where he's needed. Then Crowley coming with his head thrown back with a groan and a trail of light-not-light that crackles up from their tangled fingers along the taut lines of his torso and neck to the outer edges of his fragile lacework wings. 

Aziraphale steadies him through the shuddering aftershocks, arm braced across the small of his back, head tipped back to see Crowley's face limned by gracelight from Aziraphale's wings. He will never tire of this miracle, Aziraphale thinks, not _ever_ in the infinite years they have before them; Crowley entrusting this much, and this manner of, defiant joy to him. Naked, beneath the heavens, in Aziraphale's arms.

Crowley drops his forehead to Aziraphale's, still panting, and shifts his hand from between his own legs to cup Aziraphale's balls ever so gently -- Aziraphale hisses at the touch -- then upward to grip Aziraphale's erection. Aziraphale shudders, looking down to watch Crowley shift, still molasses-slow from orgasm, and lift himself up and then down again with a sigh of satisfaction as he settles himself with Aziraphale deep inside. Crowley loves this, loves to hold Aziraphale like this, after the urgency of his own initial orgasm has passed. Aziraphale is trembling with pre-orgasmic pleasure but he holds still and smooths his hands down Crowley's sides feeling the rhythmic in and out of his breath, the slowing post-coital beat of Crowley's human heart.

He could spend the night like this, he thinks, shaking with need but knowing Crowley has him safe. Knowing that his orgasm will come after minutes, hours, days, longer of this exquisitely human of intimacies. The dance of two selves who choose to share this pleasure with one another time and time again. Not for the first time Aziraphale thinks -- even as he begins to rock in time to Crowley's up and down, the deep squeeze of pelvic muscle agonizing in its perfection -- that he could fall asleep as Crowley rocks him here in the safety of his body. _That's it_ , Crowley is murmuring. _That's it. Good. So good. Come, for me. Just for me. For us. Show me. Show me. Show me._

And right before the precipice Aziraphale thinks _Yes, this_ and feels the seize and shudder of that thought slam through him and into Crowley who answers _Yes_ with every muscle, every sound, every _snapcrackle_ of joyous wings. _Yes, my sweetheart, my angel. Yes_.

They had only broken a single flower pot, in the end; one of Crowley's night-blooming jasmine plants. In apology, Aziraphale offers to miracle the poor thing into a new pot. "Eh," Crowley says, a sprawling, drowsy weight across Aziraphale's chest. "If it can't cling to life until the morning, it's not fit for this household anyway."

"Mmm." Aziraphale traces the curve of Crowley's temple with the tip of a finger and tucks a sleepy auburn curl behind Crowley's ear. Crowley's head is pillowed on his shoulder and all it takes is Aziraphale lifting his head slightly to put his lips in brushing contact with Crowley's forehead. With the kiss, he pushes a tendril of grace toward the jasmine, giving it enough of a hold on life that it can be transplanted in the morning if Crowley wishes.

"Merely keeping your options open, dear heart," he murmurs as Crowley slits an eye to glare up at him.

"Mphm," Crowley snorts. Then, after a moment, he drops his head back to Aziraphale's chest and snuggles closer. The greenhouse is still warm from Aziraphale's earlier industry and the air is redolent with jasmine and the scents of their lovemaking. Beneath the weight of sleepy demon, Aziraphale can feel every muscle in his body relax with the rightness of this place. With Crowley in his arms, he tips his chin up to watch the stars and feel the revolution of the earth towards dawn.


End file.
